College football: Sacramento State’s 1-2 quarterback punch is a knockout win
Bobby Fresques holds a unique place with Sacramento State football, a bridge from the past to the now.
He is the Hornets quarterback coach who played the position and played it well during his three-year stint with the program from 1990-92. Fresques was at the forefront when Sacramento State last started a season 6-0, in 1991, and he helped lead the Hornets’ transition from Division II to Division I.
Fresques’ quarterback pupils the past two seasons include Jake Dunniway and Asher O’Hara, the Hornets co-starters who have seamlessly rotated throughout games the last two seasons. With that rare yet wildly effective system, Sacramento State has stretched and buckled defenses at a dizzying rate. The Hornets have won 14 consecutive regular-season games dating back to last season with the two senior quarterbacks in the thick of all of it. The Hornets this fall average 520 yards of offense, fourth-best in the FCS, and their 48.3 points-per game average is second in the FCS to Fordham’s 49.1.
Sacramento State is coming off back-to-back 50-point outings, the first time that’s happened for the program since Fresques led the way in 1991 with 50 to beat UC Davis and 63 to topple Chico State. In beating Northern Colorado 55-7 on Oct. 8, Sacramento State amassed 37 first downs, a program record. In beating Eastern Washington 52-28 last week, the Hornets piled up 36 first downs. If it’s not Dunniway or O’Hara doing the damage, then it’s sophomore running back Cameron Skattebo, the Big Sky Conference’s leading rusher with 745 yards.
The Hornets have not trailed in a game this season. They are ranked a program-best No. 2 nationally by the Stats Perform Media Poll and third in the AFCA Coaches poll heading into Saturday night’s Big Sky showdown against No. 7 Montana in a game that will be televised on ESPN2.
So imagine the glee for the old quarterback in knowing the current guys are either passing him up on the career Hornets record board or encouraging the other to do so. It was O’Hara who teased Fresques awhile back to alert him he was about to fall behind Dunniway on the career Hornets touchdown passing list.
At Eastern Washington, the quarterbacks delivered an ideal performance in pleasing their coaches to no end: three rushing touchdowns by the running threat in O’Hara and three passing touchdowns by Dunniway, the throwing threat. After that third touchdown strike by Dunniway, Fresques got the senior from the Central Valley on the headset and congratulated him.
Fresques is all for record-breaking. The more the better. Replace the 6-0 start with a first-ever 7-0 start, for example. And break all those career passing marks, the coach insists with a grin.
“The great thing is I don’t look at it as an alumni watching those records go,” Fresques said. “I get to look at it as a coach. I’m a part of this. That’s my record, too.”
Mutual respect and ‘unfinished business’
Dunniway and O’Hara said they appreciate Fresques and head coach Troy Taylor because they speak the same language of quarterback play. Taylor was a four-year starter at Cal, setting career records in the late 1980s. Taylor and Fresques have been great friends for 30 years, and it was Fresques who introduced Taylor to his wife-to-be Tracey. The third man of the Three Musketeers here is assistant head coach and offensive line coach Kris Richardson.
Dunniway and O’Hara don’t even have to be here. Both have graduated — Dunniway in health sciences and O’Hara in integrated studies — and both are in graduate school now. They could be working real jobs somewhere, but football and the Hornets have a hold on each them both.
“There’s no rush to get into the real world,” O’Hara said, with Dunniway nodding in approval next to him.
Said Dunniway, “Since Ash showed up, I took him under my wing as a guy who was already here. He’s a great dude and player. He deserves all the accolades. We’re still here because we love this game and this program and we have some unfinished business.”
That would be threepeating as Big Sky Conference champions and making a run to the FCS championship game.
Both QBs had a long journey
Both quarterbacks bounced before they settled here, including stops at a community college. The 6-foot-1 Dunniway was a prep star at St. Mary’s High School in Stockton, winning a Sac-Joaquin Section championship in 2016 when he passed for 4,066 yards and 46 touchdowns. He redshirted his lone season of 2017 at UC Davis, transferred to Mesa College in San Diego, where he earned all-conference honors. In his first season at Sacramento State in 2019, Dunniway got the start and stunned Northern Arizona on the road with two late touchdown passes to win it.
There was no 2020 fall season due to the pandemic. Dunniway passed for 2,576 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2021 in earning Big Sky All-Conference honors. He has passed for 1,121 yards and 11 touchdowns this season.
The 6-foot O’Hara is from a town of 24,000 in Illinois called Rolling Meadows, where he was a two-time league MVP and an all-state prep star. He earned a scholarship to FBS-level Middle Tennessee State, where his name is still dotted across the school’s career lists. In 2020, O’Hara passed for 1,960 yards and 22 touchdowns and he rushed for 601 and seven, and then he headed to Sacramento State for new challenges.
Last fall, O’Hara earned All-Big Sky all-purpose honors in leading Sacramento State with 667 yards rushing and nine scores while passing for 899 and seven. This season, O’Hara has passed for 320 yards and four touchdowns and rushed for 424 and 11. His goal-line scores are of often of the highlight variety, soaring, daring ventures into the end zone.
O’Hara has 37 career rushing touchdowns while Dunniway seeks his first. The position coach and the running QB of the lot are pulling for Dunniway to score one from the ground without pulling any muscles.
“I tried to score one at Colorado State,” Dunniway said of his team’s 41-10 rout of the FBS team. “It didn’t work. It was near the goal line and I couldn’t get in. Ash makes it look so easy. I’ll get one. I’m sore the day after games and I don’t even run much. I can’t imagine what he goes through.”
‘Making us old Hornets proud’
Neither Dunniway or O’Hara anticipated using the two-QB system but they bought in because their coaches told them it could work and it had to work.
“Once we started rotating, it just started to click,” O’Hara said.
Said Montana coach Bobby Hauck this week to Montana media, “They’ve done a nice job with that (using both quarterbacks). Probably as good as I’ve ever seen.”
Taylor, the Hornets’ head coach, said the 1-2 system works because of trust and love. Said Fresques, the position coach, “It’s awesome what they’re doing. They get along really well. Just incredible what they’re doing. We’re operating at a high level. They’ve played a lot of football. They want to be around it.”
Fresques added, “I was an honorary captain for our team a few weeks ago, and I told the guys that they’re building a foundation for a great program. It’s not just a great season here and there. We’re working on three great years in a row now. They’re building a culture and they’re making a lot of us old Hornets proud.”